If you were surprised when a senior Microsoft executive took the stage at Apple’s latest product launch last week, you need to brace yourself for more of the same. The spread of digital platforms, the ease with which collaborative networks can form, and the willingness of employees to work across newly porous corporate borders mean there will be more pacts between old rivals — and they will bring problems as well as benefits.

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Ivan Glasenberg, co-founder and chief executive of Glencore, delights in telling his rivals in the commodities industry that they are wrong, and in trying to prove it by running his business differently. So it takes quite an upheaval to persuade Mr Glasenberg that he, and not someone else, is mistaken.

When General Electric bid for Honeywell in 2000, it was Jack Welch’s last “swing for the fences”. The GE chief executive handwrote the $43bn offer faxed to his Honeywell counterpart. He delayed his retirement to see through the takeover. He went alone in June 2001 to the last meeting in Brussels with Mario Monti, then European competition commissioner.

Li Yifei, head of Man Group in China, is said to have gone on holiday after being summoned by officials investigating the plunge in the stock market. As regulators, executives and journalists face allegations of manipulation and “rumour-mongering”, China wants others to take a break too.

Leading a team is hard. Now try leading one in hot, humid, cramped conditions, with knives, fire and blunt instruments to hand, and a daily imperative to make a perfect product to order, again and again, for impatient customers waiting next door. Now do it without losing your temper.

Explaining the unboxing of Alphabet, Google’s new parent, Larry Page, its chief executive, said appointing someone else to run the search company “frees up time for me to continue to scale our aspirations”.

After software engineering and financial engineering comes linguistic engineering. Google this week raised its market capitalisation by $25bn by shuffling around some executive jobs and changing its name to Alphabet. Who knew that swapping your tiles in a game of corporate Scrabble was worth so much?

Netflix’s new family leave policy — unlimited paid time off for parents in the first year after a child’s birth or adoption — is great. But it would be even better if the video streaming company could now ensure its founder and chief executive Reed Hastings has a child and spends 12 months out of the office caring for his newborn.

I’ve seen things you people wouldn’t believe,” the villain played by Rutger Hauer reminisces at the end of the film Blade Runner after hauling Harrison Ford’s character on to a roof top and sparing his life. “People” is the operative word since Roy Batty is not a person but an android who escapes to earth from a space colony and takes revenge on the Tyrell Corporation, his creator.

The causes and consequences of the long-running inflation of profits by Toshiba reflect some uniquely Japanese cultural norms. So, inevitably, did the 2011 scandal at Olympus , where successive leaders covered up accounting manipulation.

Hisao Tanaka, Toshiba’s chief executive, gave a 15-second bow on Tuesday as he resigned over a $1.2bn accounting scandal. Mr Tanaka and seven other executives took responsibility for deceptions that started in 2008. Taro Aso, Japan’s finance minister, warned that this could “lose the market’s trust”.

Imagine a business with a base of middle-class customers in the richest nations, a fervent new following in the world’s fastest-growing Asian economies, loyal corporate backers, and a new global television showcase, championed by personable young stars. Are you in?

About a decade ago, Bobby Kotick, chief executive of the video games company Activision Blizzard, flew to Kyoto to visit Nintendo. He was shown to a room with a television on which was displayed an image of a pond with bubbles floating to the surface. Satoru Iwata, Nintendo’s president, handed him a games controller called a wand and guided his hand to cast a virtual fishing line.

Habitual lateness, mild abuse of the corporate credit card, a little grousing by outgoing employees about low pay or overwork: the day to day dysfunctions of many large businesses. But could these be warning signals of a coming collapse in corporate culture or an imminent scandal? If so, how should companies detect and act on them?

Everywhere one ventures in cities, skyscrapers are being built or planned. Even Paris is getting one. The French capital last week backed plans for a 180-metre high triangular tower by Herzog & de Meuron of Switzerland, its first in four decades.

The Berlin Philharmonic’s choice of Kirill Petrenko as its next chief conductor, succeeding Sir Simon Rattle, is less remarkable than the fact it made a decision at all. The 124-member orchestra, one of the world’s most democratic musical ventures, failed to do so in May despite 11 hours of debate and several ballots.

When Deutsche Bank named John Cryan as its new chief executive three weeks ago, the commentary had an insidious subtext. He has “an enormous brain”, one friend told the FT. “Very thoughtful,” said a former colleague. Ominously for Mr Cryan, these comments echoed those made about Vikram Pandit when he unexpectedly stepped down as Citigroup’s CEO in 2012. He was “too cerebral”, said critics of the Citi boss.

ABOUT THE AUTHORS

John Gapper is an associate editor and the chief business commentator of the FT.
He has worked for the FT since 1987, covering labour relations, banking and the media. He is co-author, with Nicholas Denton, of 'All That Glitters', an account of the collapse of Barings in 1995.

Andrew Hill is an associate editor and the management editor of the FT. He is a former City editor, financial editor, comment and analysis editor, New York bureau chief, foreign news editor and correspondent in Brussels and Milan.

Emma Jacobs is a features writer for the FT, with a particular focus on Business Life. She explores workplace trends, business culture and entrepreneurship and is one of the paper's leading interviewers.

Adam Jones is editor of Business Life, home to the FT's coverage of management, entrepreneurship and working life.

Lucy Kellaway is an Associate Editor and management columnist of the FT. For the past 15 years her weekly Monday column has poked fun at management fads and jargon and celebrated the ups and downs of office life.

Ravi Mattu is the deputy editor of the FT Weekend Magazine and a former editor of Business Life. He writes about management, technology, entrepreneurship andinnovation.

Michael Skapinker is an assistant editor and editor of the FT’s special reports. A former management editor of the FT, his column on Business and Society appears every Thursday.